In one form of conventional shipping and storage container, a tubular sidewall is formed of fibrous material or other material. It is conventional to provide metal retaining rings at opposite ends of the sidewall for securing closure walls thereacross. Such metal retaining rings are relatively costly and heavy and are not fully satisfactory in the formation of a low cost shipping and storage container.
The container closure may be provided with locking structure secured thereto for retaining the closure on the container. An example of such a closure is disclosed in my U.S. Pat. No. 4,805,798. With such a container, the closure includes tabs integrally molded therewith which are drawn together to constrict a sidewall of the closure for retaining it to the container. The closure is molded of synthetic resin. While such a closure is generally satisfactory, the conventional synthetic resin may not be strong enough to survive continued locking and unlocking of the locking structure. While the cover could be molded of a high-strength engineering resin, doing so would significantly increase costs of the closure. In marketing of such a closure, a customer must then balance the advantages of the increased strength capabilities with the significantly higher costs required.
In another form of closure, a removable cover is configured to rest on an annular connecting ring at the top of the container and a locking belt is used to secure the cover to the connecting ring. The locking belt most commonly has been formed of metal and including metal locking structure riveted thereto. Such a metal locking belt can be expensive and produces problems of its own if the container is ultimately incinerated, as it is necessary to remove the metal from the incinerator.
Known locking belts have also been formed of synthetic resin and provided with locking structures similar to that described above. Such locking belts suffer the same problems. Particularly, either the locking belt is molded of synthetic resin, resulting in a lack of strength, or it can be formed of a high strength resin, increasing the cost.
The present invention is directed to solving one or more of the problems discussed above in a novel and simple manner.